Ellis Ludwig-Leone was born in Rhode Island and raised in rural Massachusetts, and currently lives in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. He grew up balancing passions for classical piano and rock music, fine-tuning this combination by studying music composition at Yale University. The product of his education and creativity was the formulation of San Fermin, an original band that could be defined as orchestral pop. Ludwig-Leone is the bandleader and composer of the Brooklyn-based band, which released a self-titled debut album in the fall of 2013 and a second album, Jackrabbit, through Downtown Records in the spring of 2015. San Fermin’s first album was named one of NPR’s “50 Best Albums of 2013.” In addition to the band, Ludwig-Leone has written for a variety of other ensembles, including the Alabama Symphony, American Contemporary Music Ensemble, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Decoda, Fifth House Ensemble, Hotel Elefant, JACK Quartet, Metropolis Ensemble, and wild UP. He has worked recently on BalletCollective’s All That We See, collaborating with choreographer Troy Schumacher, artist David Salle, and poet Cynthia Zarin, and the fall of 2015 will see the premiere of his first piece for New York City Ballet. Ludwig-Leone was recently named the 2015 composer-in-residence for the Alabama Symphony, and in addition to his fellowship at MacDowell, he has had residencies at Banff Centre for the Arts and the Við Djúpið festival in Iceland.
Ellis Ludwig-Leone
Studios
Veltin
Ellis Ludwig-Leone worked in the Veltin studio.
Veltin Studio was donated by alumni of the Veltin School, a school for girls in New York with a highly respected visual arts department. As the plaque just outside the entrance attests, this studio was used by poet Edwin Arlington Robinson during most of the 24 summers he spent at MacDowell. Perhaps most famously, Thornton Wilder put the finishing…